This invention relates to vehicle seats and more particularly headrests.
Most vehicles have one, two or three rows of vehicle seats for the driver and passengers. In some motor vehicles such as minivans and sport utility vehicles, a storage area is located behind the last row of seats. In order to access rows of seats or the storage area, at the back of the vehicle, vehicle seats often fold forward to allow easier access or to increase the size of the storage area.
When folded forward, the headrest for the vehicle seat over strikes the dashboard or the seat immediately before it. The contact of the headrest with the seat or dashboard creates several problems. First, the seat never becomes fully folded, thus limiting the amount of space available to a passenger to enter a rear seat. Second, when the seat is initially folded, the headrest may violently come into contact with the dashboard, potentially causing damage to the dashboard or the headrest. Third, after the seat is folded, the headrest may be forced into the dashboard as the passenger enters the rear seat, again potentially damaging the dashboard or the headrest, or both.
To address this problem, some vehicle seats can be slid backward to allow the seat to fully fold. However, the user must manually move the seat backward, and, if the storage area has been loaded with cargo prior to folding down the seat, the cargo must be moved. This results in inconvenience to the user as to both time and effort in using the storage area.
Other seats use a headrest retractable into the seatback. While such a seatback/headrest combination does allow the seatback to be fully folded forward without moving the seat, additional problems arise. The seatback has to be substantially modified to accommodate the headrest. The cavity within the seat for the headrest may structurally weaken the seat, creating a potential risk to passengers. Finally, because a significant portion of the upper part of the seat is dedicated to the cavity for the headrest, ergonomic design of the seat is further complicated, requiring a complex design to supply padding and appropriate passenger support.
A headrest which allows the seat to be fully folded forward without requiring additional effort by the user and which does not require extensive modifications to the seat is desirable.